


this new frontier

by CherryIce



Category: due South
Genre: Angst, M/M, Pining, Reunions, Reunited and It Feels So Good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-16 16:04:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21038939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CherryIce/pseuds/CherryIce
Summary: Ray touches down at O’Hare with a second-hand duffel bag, a bruised ego, and an ID with his face and Vecchio’s name.Ray gets stuck on the details, sometimes. Of why he's back in Chicago. The details are easier to look at.





	this new frontier

**Author's Note:**

  * For [what_alchemy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/what_alchemy/gifts).

> Written for what_alchemy, who procured my services as part of the FanWorks 2019 auction. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Graciously beta'd by sweetestdrain.

Ray touches down at O’Hare with a second-hand duffel bag, a bruised ego, and an ID with his face and Vecchio’s name.

It’s been more than eighteen hours since he took off from Yellowknife. Layovers in Calgary, Toronto, and his eyes are gritty with recycled air. His duffel is stuffed half-full with clothes and boots and really, it’s the least heavy thing he’s carrying.

Stella is waiting for him in the arrivals area. Her skin is evenly tanned and the careful highlights and lowlights in her hair have bleached out in the sun to a uniform gold. “Welsh said you were getting in today,” she says.

Ray stops and rubs his gritty eyes. “Thought you moved to Florida,” he says when she’s still there.

“Florida didn’t take,” she says.

Ray quirks his mouth. “What about Vecchio? He take?”

“More or less,” Stella says. “These days, mostly more.”

“Fair enough,” Ray says. His fingers twitch at the strap of his duffel. 

Stella starts to head to the baggage claim area.

“Nah,” Ray says. Shrugs his shoulder under his bag. “This is all I have.”

“Okay,” Stella says, and: “your turtle is in the car,” and doesn’t ask him any questions, and he remembers why he spent so much of his life loving her.

*

Ray had more stuff in the NWT, of course. Clothes, winter gear. Fraser’s dinky-ass cabin had a den that, somewhere along the way, without discussion from either of them, got gradually converted into a bedroom for Ray. It filled with bits and bobs - a toque here, fur mittens there, wool scarves and heavy socks and coats for all seasons - until one day, he found himself standing in the middle of his room, staring at his makeshift closet and wondering who the person all of it belonged to was.

Ray carries Squirtle and his aquarium up the four flights of stairs to his apartment. Stella takes his bag without a word about how light it is. 

“Might want to stay out here,” Ray says, because he neglected to pop home to take out the trash before lashing himself to a plane.

“Don’t worry about it,” Stella says, and lets them in with his spare key. Which she got from somewhere, apparently. Ray turns on the light and has a moment of vertigo or agoraphobia or something, like he can feel the size of his apartment and the city all rolled into one.

The apartment smells - surprisingly fine, a little like the car exhaust and air pollution Ray never noticed when he’d only ever lived in cities. There’s a window open, and the drapes are fluttering a little in the night air. “Oh,” Ray says, and puts Squirtle’s aquarium down there, where he can see the sun come up in the morning.

Ray follows Stella into the bedroom, and that room at least looks untouched by her hand - the bed she tosses his bag onto is half-made, the closet door standing open. He can see his trenchcoat inside. He got the trench because Vecchio wore a trench. He drew the line at the suits, though - Ray felt in jeans and a t-shirt how Vecchio felt in slacks and a button-up, and that was more important for this kind of long-term undercover. 

“I looked at my clothes one day, and realized I didn’t know who they belonged to,” Ray says. He thinks about what his wardrobe looked like after he and Stella got married, how every time he came back from undercover he added another piece that was a little more slick.

Ray has spent most of his adult life learning how to be the person people thought they were looking for.

Stella kisses his cheek, because of the two of them, Ray was the only one who ever really gave a shit about what kind of husband he was _supposed_ to be. “Goodnight,” she says, because Stella is perceptive like Fraser is, always has been, where Ray’s more dogged hard work and high-flung hopes. 

It’s probably why Stella saw the writing on the wall before Ray did.

Ray lies awake long after she’s gone, dry eyes closed, face turned into a slightly-musty pillow, feeling the weight of the city breathing outside his window.

*

Ray calls Fraser the next morning, because he’s being punished for paying his phone bill or something, and therefore the line still works and he has to make this call.

“Hey,” Ray says, when Fraser picks up. He can tell he’s there by the way he breathes. And also by how the phone got picked up. “Got in at ass-o-clock last night. Airplane food didn’t kill me, or whatever.”

“I am certainly relieved to hear that,” Fraser says. The connection is good, but he sounds like he’s a million miles away, distant and formal.

“Yeah,” Ray says, and an awkward silence stretches between them. Ray can hear traffic picking up around him as the city - not wakes, because that would imply it slept - rises. On Fraser’s end of the line, there’s nothing but silence. _I love you_, Ray wants to say, in the same way he wants to kiss Fraser: it’s something he’s never done and Fraser has always been kind enough to refrain from mentioning, no matter how obvious Ray was.

*

Two years of undercover work with the 27th, six months here, two months there, three months there, and Ray has a decent nest egg stored up. Which is good, because he doesn’t technically have a job at the moment. He thinks about going back to undercover work. He’s pretty sure that Hitashi would take him back, but Ray - Ray left Canada because he didn’t know who the clothes in the closet belonged to, and he still doesn’t have any ID with his actual name on it.

Ray’s spent the last couple of years being Vecchio. He’s spent the last few trailing Fraser, sucked into his wake and bobbing along - sometimes literally - as they hurtled through his crazy-ass world. How many lakes was he going to end up in, really. And then Vecchio walked back into his own life. Took the life Ray was living, took the life Ray’d had before and hoped to have again. And that’s not fair, because Stella is her own damn woman and wanting her back stopped being anything other than a muscle memory a long time ago, but Ray feels itchy in his skin and can’t tell if the person he is right now is particularly prone to charity.

Ray doesn’t have much else to do, so he relearns the city. Walks the streets and takes the trains, feels the knowledge of where the neighborhoods change settle back into his bones until he can once again tell by the shape of the skyline out the corner of his eye where he is. 

He walks the parks sometimes. The six and a half mile stretch of Lincoln Park, the paths and lagoon of Garfield. He finds the rustle of green centering in a different way than the solid, reassuring strength of mirrored skyscrapers of downtown. The green spaces feel a little wrong, somehow, and Ray realizes it’s because part of him still expects them to be dominated by evergreens and scrubby paper birch.

Ray gets a computer. Internet. Wanting Fraser is more than a muscle memory, but every time they talk Ray feels like they grow farther apart, like the circumference of the world is still expanding.

*

Ray writes an email: _The trees here are wrong, but the skyline reminds me that I can breathe._ Writes: _I didn’t even have a piece of paper with my own name on it._

Ray deletes it all. Sends: _I will never stop hating The Bean._

*

Stella shows up unannounced with containers of Japanese.

“Too good for Chinese?” he asks, and she just rolls her eyes and hands him a container of his favorite dumplings.

“How are things at the station?” he asks, sitting on his counter, container held close to his face.

She flicks her chopsticks vaguely beside him. “Welsh seems stressed when I see him,” she says. She’s back at the DA’s office because they’re not stupid enough to pass her up.

“He always seems a little like he’s about to blow a vein on his forehead, though,” Ray says. He stabs at his noodles with a fork. “Vecchio didn’t say?”

Beside him on the counter, Stella pauses. “He decided to take some time off,” she says.

“Uh-huh,” Ray says. 

“I don’t think he’s planning to go back again,” she says, and Ray can hear all the things she isn’t saying, about the fact that he did go back, at least for a bit. 

“If he’s having trouble,” Ray says, and thinks about the fact that Vecchio was never trained for this, that undercover with the mob can be a hell of a thing. 

“I’ve done this before,” Stella says. The comedown from undercover, the scraping back together, the renormalization of reactions. 

“Yeah,” Ray says, and lets her steal his last dumpling as an apology.

*

Ray writes _It was his life first, but it still feels a little like he’s decided against taking my entire life from me._ Writes _Even when you were taking dental imprints I already felt like you knew everything about me._

Sends _I forgot how many theaters there are here._

*

Welsh calls Ray up. “You ever going to get your ass back down here?” he asks.

Ray has samba on the record player and a pot of coffee on. “It was never my job,” he says.

“Christ,” Welsh says, and “your desk is collecting dust.”

*

Ray goes back to the 27th. 

He remembers just how much he likes putting the bad guys away.

*

_Do you miss me?_ Ray writes a hundred times, a thousand times. Fraser has to know that Ray misses him.

Fraser writes back with a punctuality that is surprisingly only because he doesn’t have internet at home. His replies are by turns cordial and short and rambling digressions. He talks about his traplines. The local economy, and how the diamond mines are beginning to reinvigorate it. Diefenbaker is besotted with the neighbor’s Pomeranian. The sun currently does not set.

_The days are so short here,_ Ray writes.

*

_I don’t know who any of this shit belongs to,_ Ray had yelled that last fight before he left.

_We can get you new clothes_, Fraser said, hands raised placatingly, voice calm and low, like - like he didn’t even care, or like he was -- like he was worried Ray was going to hit him again, and Ray didn’t know which bothered him more.

*

Ray catches some bad guys. Saves some people. Fraser responds to emails, always, but he never sends one first.

Ray feels a little like he did the first time he and Stella were off again: lungs too small and missing a piece of his heart and cataloging all the ways he went wrong. Which doesn’t even make sense, because he and Fraser were never like that, not for real. Ray goes on a blind date with a woman, then with a man. Both end with them excusing themselves politely at the end of the night. They don’t say they’ll call and Ray breathes a little easier because it all felt so wrong, so aggressively wrong. Like a betrayal, even though there was nothing to betray but his own stupid heart.

“I hope you find what you’re looking for,” the woman says before she leaves. The man just rests his hand briefly on Ray’s arm.

*

Time passes. Seasons change. Winters aren’t as cold here, but the humidity creeps into his bones in a different way. Crime is somehow not much less weird without Fraser. Ray had assumed, for some reason, that the general aura of rubber ducks and spies and pretzels was Fraser-related, but apparently it’s just Chicago. 

“The world has always been this weird,” Mort tells him. “You’re just paying attention to it now.”

Ray has written one of his normal draft emails - _it was never about the clothes_ and _okay, it was about the clothes, but not in the way you think. I love you, okay, i love you in a big, stupid way, but i’ve spent the last few years being someone else and - i needed to figure out who i am without trying to be the person i thought you want._ and _you can track down seven sapphire smugglers from the dust and wear pattern on a victim’s shoe, of course you knew, of course you’ve always known_.

Ray reaches for his coffee and goes to replace the email with an anecdote about having to capture three llamas on the lam (one of whom repeatedly spit in Huey’s face).

It’s not where he expects it to be. It’s closer, back of his hand crashing into hot ceramic. The mug skitters, tips. Shatters on the hard floor, pieces scattering across the linoleum and hot coffee soaking his leg.

“Shit,” Ray swears, jumping, hands spasming, pawing at his jeans. 

His computer makes the long, drawn-out whoosh of an email sending.

*

“Just out of curiosity,” Ray says. “There’s not a way to unsend an email, is there? There isn’t some like, mystical email sorting office that I can flash my badge at to reclaim a message before it goes out?”

Stella hangs up on him.

So does Welsh.

Squirtle blinks at him slowly.

“I need more friends,” Ray tells his turtle. 

*

Fraser doesn’t respond to that email, nor to the follow-up one Ray sends, title all exclamation points and body just a request for Fraser not to open the last email, deliberately playing hard on his sense of honor and responsibility.

*

It’s the first time in the almost-a-year that Fraser hasn’t responded.

“He’s probably out on assignment,” Stella says.

Ray blinks at her. It’s - unexpectedly balanced. “Why soft-foot it now?” Ray asks. “You never even liked him anyway.”

Stella snorts. “You never much liked anyone I was with, either.”

*

Ray sucks it up and tries calling Fraser.

No one answers.

*

Ray unplugs his computer from the wall. If it’s going to betray him like this he’s damn well going to take away its source of sustenance.

It also stops him from spending his time tapping at the edge of his desk and waiting for an email that doesn’t come.

*

Ray’s pizza is early.

“Coming!” he yells, snagging his wallet from his coat. “What do I owe you?” he asks as he opens the door, sorting through bills.

“I - nothing,” the voice on the other side of the door says, and Ray just about drops his wallet with numb fingers, because it’s not the pizza guy on the other side of the door. 

It’s Fraser. He’s wearing civvies and his Stetson, and Ray thinks distantly that there might be some kind of uniform code against that. “Fraser,” Ray says, and, again, “Fraser. You look good.”

Fraser takes his hat off. His fingers clench around the brim. He does look good, of course, Fraser always looks good, Ray’s not sure if he’s even capable of otherwise. But his hair is mussed from his hat, there’s a ten o’clock shadow on his jaw, and he looks a little wild around the eyes. He pushes past Ray and into the apartment, Dief following at his heels. Fraser paces to the stove. Stops and opens his mouth. Closes it. Comes back to stand by the door with Ray.

“Hey, buddy,” Ray says. Fraser doesn’t say anything. Ray scratches his ear. Embarrassment churns at his gut.

Dief butts his head up against Ray’s knee much more gently than expected, and Ray crouches down to pet him. Anything to break the awkward silence. Ray has read and reread the accidental email about half a million times and he has no idea where to start.

“Hey, buddy,” Ray says again, more quietly, digging his fingers into Dief’s fur and ruffling his ears. When he looks up, Fraser is still standing there, staring down at him intently.

“I thought --” Fraser says. Clears his throat. “When you said you didn’t know who your things belonged to, I thought you meant that you didn’t want - that you didn’t want to be the person who owned them. That you didn’t want to be part of my life.”

Ray exhales. Digs his fingers into Dief’s fur. “I just - I wanted to figure out who I was. When I wasn’t Vecchio. Wasn’t Stella’s. Wasn’t bobbling along in your wake,” he says.

“Did you mean what you said?” Fraser asks. “I know - it was clear you didn’t mean to send the email, but I couldn’t help myself, I’m sorry.”

“Which part of it?” Ray asks. Dief noses at his ear. Ray tries to act like someone who hasn’t memorized an entire mortifying email. But Fraser is here, Fraser is _here_, and that means something. There’s something warm building in his chest and he tries to tamp it down, because he doesn’t know why Fraser is here, okay, he doesn’t know, not for sure.

“All of it,” Fraser says. “That you love me. That I knew. That you just - didn’t know who you were.”

“Yeah,” Ray says, because why the hell not. “Yeah, all of it.”

Fraser’s fingers tighten on his hat and he puts it slowly, carefully, down on Ray’s kitchen table. 

Ray’s knees are starting to feel the bite of the tile, but Dief is licking his neck.

Fraser exhales slowly and offers Ray a hand up. He doesn’t drop it when Ray is standing. Instead he slowly, glacially slowly, reaches out his other hand to cup Ray’s jaw. 

He’s moving too slowly for Ray though, and Ray -- he lunges forward, or crashes forward, Fraser’s body solid against him, lips parting under his, and they stumble backward. Fraser’s back hits the knobs on the stove, and the entire thing _thunks_ back against the apartment wall and they pull apart. Fraser hisses, just a little, but from him, it’s like a yelp.

“You okay?” Ray asks. Slides his hands around to press against Fraser’s back where he slammed into the knobs

“I am - I am more than fine, Ray,” Fraser assures him. Ghosts his thumb across Ray’s jaw.

Ray presses a shaky forehead to Fraser’s. Fraser smells like airports and anyone who’s been on three planes and it’s the best thing Ray’s smelled in ages.

“Did you figure it out?” Fraser asks. “Who you are?”

Ray laughs, soft. “A little.” He thinks he knows this - who he is will continue changing from day to day, for the rest of his life.

“I knew,” Fraser says. Kisses him again, like he’s hungry for it. “All along, I could see it underneath.”

Ray snorts. “Yeah, well. You’re a genius and I’m an open book.”

“You give me too much credit and yourself too little,” Fraser says. His hands tighten on Ray’s hips. “I didn’t know,” Fraser says. “That you loved me. I hoped, but it’s easy to project desired outcomes.”

Ray closes his eyes. He can feel the burn of Fraser’s stubble on his chin. “And what are they, huh?” he asks. “Your desired outcomes?” He opens his eyes again, and Fraser’s eyes are very, very blue and very, very close.

“Just this,” Fraser says, and kisses him. “Just you.”

Ray kisses him back, deeper this time, and Dief gives a loud whine a half-second before there’s a knock at his door, because he’s always had a nose for pepperoni.

Ray kisses Fraser once, twice, quickly, and steps back. “Okay,” he says. And he knows that isn’t all of it, that _just you_ is a start and not an end. “Pizza’s here. Let’s figure the rest out.”


End file.
